An American district judge gave a burning statement Monday that expanded a temporary bloc on President Donald Trump’s freezing of federal funding for aid programs.
Judge Loren Alikhan said the National Council of Nonprofit Organizations and others who brought the case had shown that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if Federal Aid Freeze was allowed to take effect.
Trump triggered nationwide confusion last week with an order from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which ordered a freezer of trillion of dollars in federal loans, grants and other assistance.
The move created a rebellion and OMB issued a tight notification that the freezing of the aid order had been “canceled.”
The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced shortly after, but the expenses freeze remained in place – and only the memo from the budget office was lifted, one step the judge described as “uncomfortable.”
Alikhan blocked the consumer freezing last week until the end of a Washington hearing on Monday, and she made a decision shortly after he extended the break.
“The statements and evidence that the plaintiffs present paint a sharp image of nationwide panic in the wake of the financing freezing,” she wrote in a 30-page statement.
“Organizations with every conceivable mission – healthcare, scientific research, emergencies and more – were closed out of financing portals or denied critical resources that began on January 28.”
The judge, an appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, said as much as $ 3 trillion in financial assistance was implicated by the freezer, “a breathtakingly large sum of money to suspend practically overnight.”
Omb, she added, had “had no rational explanation of why they needed to freeze all federal financial assistance with less than 24 hours notice.”
“If the defendant intends to carry out an exhaustive review of what programs should or should not be financed, such a review could be conducted without depriving millions of Americans access to vital resources,” she said.
“Instead of taking a measured approach to identifying allegedly wasting expenses, the accused cut the fuel supply to a huge, complicated nationwide machine – apparently without regard to the consequences.”
She also said the White House had overreaved and “the granting of government resources is reserved for Congress, not the executive branch.”
Many organizations are still waiting for funds to be paid out, she said.
A district judge in Rhode Island last week also temporarily blocked the freezing of federal aid expenses in a case brought by 22 states.
